the last we
shall ever hold upon this subject), I will repeat to you some words I
have heard from the lips of the Abbe Busoni. For all evils there are
two remedies--time and silence. And now leave me, Monsieur Bertuccio, to
walk alone here in the garden. The very circumstances which inflict
on you, as a principal in the tragic scene enacted here, such painful
emotions, are to me, on the contrary, a source of something like
contentment, and serve but to enhance the value of this dwelling in my
estimation. The chief beauty of trees consists in the deep shadow of
their umbrageous boughs, while fancy pictures a moving multitude of
shapes and forms flitting and passing beneath that shade. Here I have
a garden laid out in such a way as to afford the fullest scope for the
imagination, and furnished with thickly grown trees, beneath whose leafy
screen a visionary like myself may conjure up phantoms at will. This to
me, who expected but to find a blank enclosure surrounded by a straight
wall, is, I assure you, a most agreeable surprise. I have no fear of
ghosts, and I have never heard it said that so much harm had been done
by the dead during six thousand years as is wrought by the living in a
single day. Retire within, Bertuccio, and tranquillize your mind. Should
your confessor be less indulgent to you in your dying moments than you
found the Abbe Busoni, send for me, if I am still on earth, and I will
soothe your ears with words that shall effectually calm and soothe your
parting soul ere it goes forth to traverse the ocean called eternity."

Bertuccio bowed respectfully, and turned away, sighing heavily. Monte
Cristo, left alone, took three or four steps onwards, and murmured,
"Here, beneath this plane-tree, must have been where the infant's grave
was dug. There is the little door opening into the garden. At this
corner is the private staircase communicating with the sleeping
apartment. There will be no necessity for me to make a note of these
particulars, for there, before my eyes, beneath my feet, all around me,
I have the plan sketched with all the living reality of truth." After
making the tour of the garden a second time, the count re-entered his
carriage, while Bertuccio, who perceived the thoughtful expression of
his master's features, took his seat beside the driver without uttering
a word. The carriage proceeded rapidly towards Paris.

That same evening, upon reaching his abode in the Champs Elysees, the
Count of M